Ferchi

One problem here is that unless they’re Goldman Sachs, banks don’t mark all their assets to market every day: the current secondary market price might be a more reliable guide to value than anything else, but that doesn’t make it infallible or even in the right ballpark. And of course the minute that the EFSF or anybody else starts treating the market price as some kind of holy benchmark, you can be sure that the market price will start rising dramatically.